Equity, Diversity Workshops Held

A series of faculty and staff workshops will be held this winter by the Equity and Diversity Advisory Committee, with an aim of fostering more discussion among faculty and staff.Principal Tom Hassan hopes that these meetings will “help guide [Exeter] towards a vision of uniting knowledge and goodness in a caring and connected community,” according to an email sent out to faculty and staff.The project began in 2010 when Hassan administered a survey of the whole community to identify and address potential problems of equity and diversity hindering the Academy. From the responses, the administration is working to address these facets of Exeter life.“Two years ago, faculty, staff and students were asked to complete a lengthy survey on questions related to equity and diversity on campus,” Dean of Faculty Ronald Kim said. “All those who took the survey offered their thoughts on what is going well and what could be improved in the areas of equity and diversity on campus. An advisory committee to Principal Hassan evaluated the results, and followed up with small discussion groups of faculty and staff to better understand the responses that we received.”Hassan said that the results have helped administrators create opportunities for employees to get to know each other and for students to form more significant relationships with faculty, to “address real or perceived power imbalances among employees,” to “provide supervisors and senior faculty with leadership training” and to “review and revise policies and practices” that could “create real or perceived inequities.”Overall, the administration “determined what we want this community to look like and feel like in the future,” Kim said. “We believe that we can achieve excellence by engaging with each other and valuing respect, inclusion, and empathy. We have already taken specific actions in these areas, and we are eager to hear from the faculty and staff about additional actions that they would like to pursue.”These pivotal yet difficult goals to achieve will be focused on throughout the month of December during administrator-led workshops. Because of the complexity of these issues, the Equity/Diversity Committee’s campaign depends upon the success and efficiency of these discussion groups.“Mr. Hassan cares deeply about helping people be happy in their work at this school,” science instructor Townley Chisholm said. “I don't think the workshops can change the different natures of the work done by different employees, but they can help us to get to know each other better. We will need to wait to see how successful they will be.”Kelly McGahie, assistant director of Student Activities, believed that these discussions would overcome the difficulties of inciting change and could establish a long-lasting effect at the Academy.“It is really difficult on an institutional level to make a real change. I’m not speaking about the Academy, but often times when organizations undertake things like these, they are very shortsighted about it with a lot of ‘pom pom’ raising,” McGahie said. “But in these meetings there is a commitment to really continue to have these conversation and to engage in these dialogues so that there is meaningful change.”One of the meetings occurred Dec. 11, and as the others approach, the reason for emphasizing communication among teachers, staff and students becomes increasingly clear.“A school where the adults on campus model this kind of behavior would be a more effective school and would demonstrate to the students the kinds of interactions that they should emulate,” Kim said.The effort will continue step-by-step as a long-term priority for the Academy, and Hassan said his staff will help the rest of campus accomplish equity and diversity within the Exeter community step by step.“For now, our focus is on the adults in this process, but our attention will then turn to the results the we collected from students,” Kim said. “Ultimately the diversity of this campus is one of our great gifts, and the more we can do to continue to develop it, nurture it, and maximize the benefits of it, the better off we will all be.”